illness and aging as a spiritual practice

Has this ever happened to you? You run into someone you haven't seen for awhile, and you know at a glance that something isn't right. Their color isn't good, or their gate is slow and hesitating. They appear slightly stooped. They seem to have aged rapidly.

Do you comment on it? Do you express your concern, hoping they won't take offense at it? You wonder if, perhaps, they have cancer, or their heart is giving out. Are they depressed, or just worn out? You want to know their story.

"We age not by years,

but by stories."

~unknown~

This happened to me just last week. I met up with a friend I haven't seen for months, thanks to Covid-19, and I was surprised to see the toll time had taken on him. So I asked about it. How was his health? No answer. Had he seen a doctor? No. Had he undergone any testing? No. The story was not forthcoming. 

It is a person's prerogative, of course, to defend his privacy. It is his right to decline evaluation and treatment. It may be his choice to suffer in silence...

"Be good to yourself.

If you don't take care of your body,

where will you live?"

~Kobi Yamada~ 

...even though this path can leave concerned family members and friends feeling helpless. It can be frustrating, indeed maddening, not to be trusted with the truth. Not to be allowed to help, even if all we can do is listen.

We all encounter people we cannot help. In healthcare, it is sometimes a patient whose treatment has failed, when we have nothing else to offer. Some people refuse help out of a sense of heroic stoicism, or fierce independence. Some of us are ashamed, or afraid, or unable to face the truth when we age, or our health fails, or we sometimes want to give up. So we don't say anything.

"There is no greater agony

than bearing an untold story inside you."

~Maya Angelou~

Caring and concerned friends are then left with nothing to do but watch, and worry. Or pray, when we don't know what we're praying for. Or simply to let life unfold as it is meant to be.

"Old age spiritualizes us naturally."

~Ram Dass~

jan